Align to in Version 1.8

[evtonic3]

I can't seem to "ungrey" out the Align to option when I have two groups selected. Please tell me if I can turn it back on again in version 1.8.

[walt.farrell]

Can you provide a screenshot to clarify which option you're referring to, and what objects you have selected?

[evtonic3]

11 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Can you provide a screenshot to clarify which option you're referring to, and what objects you have selected?

 

[evtonic3]

[evtonic3]

Can't seem to get the option on two basic objects also.

 

[walt.farrell]

Thanks, @evtonic3.

It's working like it used to on Windows, so it looks like a Mac-specific issue. Question: is that option selectable if you choose an alignment method for Align Horizontally or Align Vertically? You don't seem to have said how you want to align them in your screenshots, and perhaps you need to specify that before the other options are enabled?

[MEB]

It is indeed working correctly walt both on Mac and Windows.

[walt.farrell]

1 minute ago, MEB said:

It is indeed working correctly walt both on Mac and Windows.

But on Windows the Align To option is enabled (with or without selecting other options) and from what @evtonic3 sees it is not enabled. As they are working differently, how are both correct?

[evtonic3]

If I select two objects, the app should leave me option to decide how I want to align them by letting me choose from the drop down. There is not one at the moment. It is greyed out. The drop down will engage if I select any option button at top but that defeats the purpose of the options. Hope this makes sense.

[walt.farrell]

1 minute ago, evtonic3 said:

If I select two objects, the app should leave me option to decide how I want to align them by letting me choose from the drop down. There is not one at the moment. It is greyed out. The drop down will engage if I select any option button at top but that defeats the purpose of the options. Hope this makes sense.

Why does it "defeat the purpose" of the options if you have to select the alignment method first?

You can select the method (left, right, center , ...) first, then select the Align To, and it works just fine. The alignment is not finalized until you click OK or click outside the dialog. You can even change the method, and the Align To, multiple times before finalizing.

[MEB]

There is a regression here. My apologies evtonic3. It was working fine on the Customer Beta and in the previous version (1.7.3). I will log this. Will have to check Windows too. Thank you all for the feedback.

[woefi]

Maybe this has to do with this "undo-bug". Just wondering.

Have you already fixed your "zero undo steps"-settings in the performance tab of preferences which was introduced in 1.8.0.

[walt.farrell]

5 minutes ago, woefi said:

Maybe this has to do with this "undo-bug". Just wondering.

Have you already fixed your "zero undo steps"-settings in the performance tab of preferences which was introduced in 1.8.0.

The Preferences only lets you fix part of the problem. There's a patch to run that fixes more, but I have no idea if it would address this:

 

[Gabe]

Hi all,

This is not actually a regression, but the intended behaviour. Selecting an "Align to" option before selecting the method would not make sense, so having it greyed out is expected. The problem is on Windows, where you can select an "Align to" before doing anything else - not sure why one would need this, as it does not do anything anyways. 

[evtonic3]

20 minutes ago, Gabe said:

Hi all,

This is not actually a regression, but the intended behaviour. Selecting an "Align to" option before selecting the method would not make sense, so having it greyed out is expected. The problem is on Windows, where you can select an "Align to" before doing anything else - not sure why one would need this, as it does not do anything anyways. 

How would you do a align to last selected? I need to know the proper steps for my work depends on this feature.

[evtonic3]

36 minutes ago, Gabe said:

Hi all,

This is not actually a regression, but the intended behaviour. Selecting an "Align to" option before selecting the method would not make sense, so having it greyed out is expected. The problem is on Windows, where you can select an "Align to" before doing anything else - not sure why one would need this, as it does not do anything anyways. 

How would you do a align to last selected? I need to know the proper steps for my work depends on this feature.

[Gabe]

You start by selecting how you want to align them from the "Align horizontally" or "Align Vertically" ( left, centre, right, distribute) and then the "Align to" options 

[walt.farrell]

I see that the new Windows betas of Photo and Designer, 1.8.1.595, have fixed this. It is no longer possible to select Align To without first selecting the kind of alignment to perform.

[nonresidentalien]

Why fixing something that was not broken in the first place?

Aligning to key objects make up about 70% of my alignments, and this change of behavior does not improve anything. I would have preferred it if the development efforts would have been used for an actual improvement, e.g. the ability to select a key object with the mouse, rather than having to navigate  through a pop-up menu over and over again. 

 

 

[nonresidentalien]

On 2/27/2020 at 5:52 AM, Gabe said:

You start by selecting how you want to align them from the "Align horizontally" or "Align Vertically" ( left, centre, right, distribute) and then the "Align to" options 

Before this change, the tool was remembering the previous selection, so one could do several consecutive alignments to key objects without having to re-select the method of choice. Now, one has to select it again for every alignment. Yet another random decision made workflows much more tedious, it drives me up the walls. 

If only the development efforts would have been used to make the tool easier to use, rather than more tedious. 

[Gabe]

On 4/10/2020 at 12:45 AM, nonresidentalien said:

Before this change, the tool was remembering the previous selection, so one could do several consecutive alignments to key objects without having to re-select the method of choice. Now, one has to select it again for every alignment. 

Issue logged

[nonresidentalien]

4 hours ago, Gabe said:

Issue logged

Thanks. In general, I would really love to see the align to key object function to be less cumbersome. Most scientific or technical artwork requires A LOT of alignments to key-objects. It would be nice if one could select the key object by mouse (or keyboard mouse combo), or have dedicated buttons for placement in the toolbar; the buttons behavior (align to first/last) could be set via the application preferences, I assume most people are settling for one or the other for their workflow and have no need to pick it for each alignment...

[transposable]

@nonresidentalien Research scientist here. Just started using AD tonight (we've been using AI for several years for all of our papers/proposals). Key object alignment is a task done thousands of times as each manuscript is prepared for publication. I was completely thrown off by AD's alignment tool. Have you come up with an efficient solution? Thanks.

[nonresidentalien]

On 4/22/2020 at 8:40 PM, transposable said:

@nonresidentalien Research scientist here. Just started using AD tonight (we've been using AI for several years for all of our papers/proposals). Key object alignment is a task done thousands of times as each manuscript is prepared for publication. I was completely thrown off by AD's alignment tool. Have you come up with an efficient solution? Thanks.

Hi transposable,

I have started to use the 'Show alignment handles' feature in combination with Snapping (activate snapping to bounding box, midpoints, object geometry). Still not really what I would prefer but it facilitates the trivial tasks a lot.

Hope this helps.

Lars